INVASION OR LIBERATION DAY OF GOA - A.Veronica Fernandes, Kuwait

Today on this date in 1961 when I was a young boy schooling at Escola Primaria de Abade Faria in Candolim the ancestral village of Abade Faria where his house is still existing next to our Portuguese School, the Bharati Government of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru under the command of his Malyali defense Minister Krishna Menon sent military and invaded Goa and annexed it to Bharat.

This was done in the name of liberation. The impression given by Nehru Government to the world was that Goa was liberated by the locals. It is not correct. Goa was forcibly annexed with the help of Bharati mighty military power by Nehru. Local anti-Portuguese elements had no guts to overthrow Portuguese from Goa. Many of the so-called freedom fighters were fake and rogues. In the name of fighting Portuguese Government in Goa, they were robbing innocent Goans including school going students from Arpora and Guirim. One of the main headquarters of rogue and criminal freedom fighters was at Assagao Bardez under the direction of one MGP stalwart. The villages of Arpora, Anjuna and Siolim in Bardez were ripe of this type of robber freedom fighters and when Portuguese Police force started to hunt them for committing robberies and murders on innocent Goans they were fleeing Goa and taking shelter in Bombay and other parts of Maharastra. Later on many of these robbers came to Goa and with the help of MGP and Bondodkar started claiming the status of Freedom fighters. When I asked one of them the reason, he replied “because I am not interested in Bharati rule nor Portuguese rule, both rules are rules of corrupt and rogues. I am only interested in Tamrapatra and pension”.

For me if I were a freedom fighter undergone imprisonement under the Portuguese rule, I would never accept pension because I would consider my job as sacred which has no compensating power on this planet. I would consider my work as freedom fighter as non-commercial and not cheap which could be purchased by a few thousand rupees of pension. I would rather starve than to accept the commercial value of my work in the form of pension. By accepting pension I would be making a joke of my work which is really supreme and none could evaluate its worth. I would treat my work in freedom movement as work out of high ideology, unpurchasable, uncommercial and uncompensative. The Bharati mighty military comprising about 18 thousand military force marched over Goa and easily outnumbered around 5 thousand Portuguese military, majority being Portuguese soldiers while negligible number being Goans. No direct and open resistance was given by the Portuguese military to Indian Army, they surrendered easily and collapsed like a pack of cards except at Aguada where little firing was done by the Portuguese Military but ultimately they also surrendered. As a punishment, all the military personnel at Aguada where stripped of their clothes, tied to each other and kept in the hot sun on top of the plateau above Aguada jail. As news spread, some of the Portuguese soldiers were physically assaulted by the Bharati military personnel. From one source the news spread that some of the Indian Military personnel were hunting for Portuguese ladies possibly the wives of top Portuguese military personnel to rape them. As a metter of interest non-Goan Indians are crazy after white skin ladies and precisely for this reason they are coming to Goa in the form of tourists for hunting cheap hippies. I don’t find it difficult to believe because Indian Military has got this dirty habit like that of Iraqi Army of raping the women of invaded countries. Indian Military did this dirty acts in Bangladesh, they did in Goa, for this reason the village Pe. Vigar of Candolim Church stopped Novenas (Salve) in the evenings leading to the feast of Nossa Senhora de Esperanca. The Novenas started on 18th December but when news started circulating the Bharati Military personnel went on rampage of raping Goan women here and there, the village Pe. Vigar, Pe. Nicholau Noronha who was then a great Goan nationalist and anti Portuguese but pro-Goan, stopped the evening Novenas (Salve). I was a choirboy that time and during the evening Salves, I was one of the 5 young boys doing the singing role of “ANZ”.

The Portuguese had to leave from Goa is a sure fact, either yesterday, today or tomorrow but surely we did not want them to rule over us. But neither we wanted Bharati Portuguese in the name of liberation. The father of the nation Gandhiji was not in favour of forcibly annexing Goa. He did not like to use force in uprooting Portuguese from Goa. He was of the opinion that either today or tomorrow or the day after tomorrow Portuguese will have to leave from Goa and that day was not far, Gandhiji was sure about it. Another great Indian leader and later on Prime Minister of India, Morarjee Desai was damn against Nehru’s decision of sending Military to capture Goa. Morarjee Desai wanted Goans to start the revolution of liberating their Goa from Portuguese rule and he was sure Goans will do this without the help of outside force. Even I myself at a later stage would involve in telling Portuguese to leave Goa peacefully and leave our land in our hands. The then Goan Brahmins and Bhatkars never did this type of hard talking forcefully, on the contrary they collaborated with Portuguese, some of them doled their wives to Portuguese officials to get better facilities for them to control Goan commerce, mining and other commercial ventures. Some of them later on joined together to invite Governador Vassalo e Silva (last Governor of Goa) to Goa.

On this day in 1961 there were demonstration in praise of Indian Millitary but most of the people involved in these demonstrations were communal in nature, they were shouting slogans Jai Hind meaning according to them, Hindu Raj, they never knew what is the meaning of the word Hind and how it came into being. For these idiotic minded communalists, Hind means rule of Hindus only. They thought Goan Catholics and Muslims were pro-Portuguese and they only were pro-Bharat. These scrap Goans later on joined hands with Dayananda Bandodkar in the name of Bahujan Samaz under the banner of Mahrastrawadi Gomantak Party to merge Goa with Maharastra. They have done injustice to Goa and Goans, they tried to kill Goan identity by acquiring everything non-Goans. They were not genuine Goans, their ancestry and roots are somewhere in Shivaji land. We as young men fought against their ideology while in Goa and helped finishing of MGP in Goa. Now in place of MGP another similar but worst party is developed in Goa in the name of BJP. The present generation of young men and women must fight and work hard to finish the influence of BJP in Goa. MGP and BJP are both communal and the members of these parties are giving distorted image of Christians dubbing them as anti-Indian and pro-Portuguese. They must know that Christians were and are more patriotic for Goa than others. Christians have done greater service for Goa by campaigning against Portuguese rule in Goa. Overwhelming majority of Goans campaigning from Bombay against Portuguese rule in Goa were Christians. The first Goan to campaign from outside India against Portuguese rule in Goa was Christian from Navelim Salcette – Dr. Francis Luis Gomes. He had unique distinction of raising the voice of Goan freedom from Portuguese Parliament itself and from there he went to France to raise the voice of Goa’s freedom. He was proud not only to be a Goan but also an Indian when he openly declared in Europe saying “I have come from the land that gave to the world the epics Ramayana and Mahabarata and invented the game of Chess”.

In the post 18.12.61 Goa there is lot of developments in Goa, which one must be bold enough to admit but on the other hand the pre 19.12.61 character of Goa has totally finished from Goa. This was because of the corrupt non-Goan influence implanted in Goa by the arrival of dirty, cunning, crook, traitors, robbers and criminals from outside Goa. They are raping genuine Goa, they are destroying true Goa and in the bargain they are converting my genuine Goa, my true Goa as any other state of India where corruption is rampant. It is a pity that the present generation is not raising its voice forcefully against this non-Goan influence in Goa as they should. Our elders after voicing their dislike on this attitude died and gone but their places have not been suitably replaced. The current generation and coming generations will turn into just any other citizens from any other places in India. Many of our genuine freedom fighters seeing the corruption and terrorism perpetrated by many of the gangs in Goa are repenting for fighting against Portuguese rule in Goa. They have admitted to me personally that it would have been better if Portuguese been to Goa still. They admitted that they lost control of Goa after 1961. One of them even once told me that he would like to commit suicide but I prevented him. This was the disgust of some of the genuine freedom fighters of Goa who fought against the Portuguese rule in Goa to convert it into a golden Goa but to their regret my land finally got converted into corrupt Goa. God alone save Goa from extinction as Goa.

While concluding let me quote the great intellectual son of Goa the late Fr. Mendonca the then principal of Arpora School when he told the students in the class “ On 19.12.1961 Goa was not liberated but Goa was invaded by Indian Military ”. And by the way, in the subsequent period when the Supreme Court deliberated on this topic, what epic judgement the apex court passed? That judgement never used the word “liberation”.